When Seconds Count, Police May Be Over An Hour Away

After hearing a friend’s story of a home intrusion he thwarted only 2 miles from my home last week, I happened to run in to a town officer at Kwik Trip. I asked him, “Hey, what do you think the furthest distance you are ever from any given residence if we had to call 9-1-1? Like what’s the longest response time you think you’d have in this area?” In small towns like mine, spread over a large rural area, we only have the means to have two on-duty officers and they’re most often ‘on loan’ from their various precincts and counties in the area.

“Oh I don’t know,” he said, “I guess if we’re on the other side of town or patrolling the highway, it could be up to 20 min for the homes on the outskirts of our jurisdiction. Maybe more if the roads are bad in winter, you know.”

Maybe 20 minutes isn’t too long to wait for a non-emergency call, but could you wait over an hour if there was an intruder actively breaking into your home?

Last week, a story emerged from Dayton, Ohio where dispatchers confirmed a woman was forced to call into dispatch two times over a span of over sixty minutes. The first call came in approximately 3:00 am on the morning of September 10, 2015 when she was awakened by a stranger banging at her door.

The call transcript reads:

Caller: Someone is trying to break into my house!
Dispatcher: Can you see someone or hear someone, what’s going on?
Caller: Someone is banging on the door.

While the emergency dispatcher does ask additional questions, they eventually end the call with the woman, saying “Keep an eye out for the officer and call us back if you hear anything else.”

Unbelievably, more than an hour passed in which time the intruder continued to relentlessly attempt to break into the woman’s home. When she ultimately discovered 22-year-old DeBrandon Dickerson, of Detroit, actively trying to get inside an upstairs window of her home, she was forced to take matters into her own hands and shot the would-be assailant.

This time, the dispatcher remained on the line until help arrived. A third emergency call came into dispatch regarding the break in, this time from a relative of Dickerson who found him with a gunshot would to his chest. Dayton Police say at the time of the shooting, there were seven officers and one sergeant on duty, however all were working other calls.

So next time gun grabbers try to tell you how ‘paranoid’ or ‘insecure’ you are for owning or carrying guns and relying on yourself for your own protection, here’s yet another story you can share with time to prove that we all need to own our self defense. Remember, when seconds count, your local police could be minutes if not an hour away.